“The two-faced god,” Warburg said.
Deane stared at him for a moment, then shook his head and laughed.
A few minutes later, having crossed through the echoing marble of the palatial public rooms of the first floor, they found themselves on the rear terrace overlooking the park-like expanse of lawn. But it was the basketball court toward which they both looked. The one-on-one began as a passing joke, then became a dare, a pair of aging hotshots egging each other on. The gardener had come up with the basketball. They had stripped to their undershirts—Deane laying aside his red-marked rabat and collarless white shirt with the sleeves folded back to protect the cufflinks, Warburg taking off his shirt and tie. In street shoes, they gave themselves less to pivots and lay-ups than to long set shots and hooks. Neither man had lost the touch, and they immediately recognized it in each other.
Warburg was junior by fifteen years, and Deane was heftier; he could be seen to carry a bit of a paunch. But Deane had clearly kept up his game, one advantage of being a member of a sports-obsessed and sublimating fraternity of celibates. In New York, he’d been out to the gym at Dunwoodie every week for pickup games with younger priests and seminarians, who’d dubbed him Antiquus, the old one. Behind his back, they’d called him Auntie.
Here, the game shifted when Warburg faked going up for a shot, and Deane was fooled. Warburg put the ball down hard, just past Deane’s hip. He protected the ball with his body and with abrupt quickness took a first long step toward the hoop. Deane responded with quickness of his own and slapped at the ball, nicking it, but not enough. Warburg drove past, into the open, and scored easily.
Deane’s ball. He smiled thinly. Warburg’s eyes were locked on his. What a relief to be channeling all thought and feeling into bodily movement. Adrenaline and a peak of concentration moved the pair into the zone for which, long before, each had lived. But now Warburg was lulled into overplaying to his right, and at Deane’s next jab step, Warburg bit. Deane took the long cross to the outside of Warburg’s left foot, then—bang! He swung the ball away, showing for the first time that he could dribble equally well with either hand. He drilled past the flat-footed Warburg and made his lay-up.
They traded basket for basket—and elbow for elbow. On defense, Warburg took to making himself bigger, spreading his feet wider than his shoulders, flaring his elbows, hands up. Deane began to bump, using his weight. Sweat dripped from their faces. What began as a low-key exercise in nostalgia had become a true contest.
“Foul!” called Deane as the ball bounced off the rim.
“Says who?” Warburg challenged.
“You pushed into me as I was shooting. My points!”
“You’re kidding yourself, Father,” Warburg said, and waited for Deane’s signal that he heard the rebuke. Deane’s already red face reddened more. Then Warburg said, “You were charging. My feet were planted.”
“What rules do you Elis play by?”
Warburg froze. “‘You Elis’?”
For a long second, the two men stared at each other. Sweat fell in droplets from each man’s chin. “Elis?” Warburg repeated. As in Eli, the Israelite judge? As in Eli, the Hebrew name for God? As in Hebe? What was he being called?
“Eli,” Deane said, with a hint of perplexity, “from Elihu.”
“Elihu?” Warburg was flummoxed.
“Elihu Yale. Didn’t you play at Yale?”
“Yale?” Warburg was still confused, then it hit him. Undergraduates at Yale went by that nickname, tied to, yes, the seventeenth-century founder. “No. No. I played ball at Middlebury. Went to Yale for law school. No Elis at the law school.”
“I played at Fordham. Different league.”
“Fordham. No wonder.”
“No wonder what?” Was Deane, too, set to take offense?
“Fordham’s Division One,” Warburg said. “No wonder you’re good.” Warburg flipped the ball to Deane. “Take it out.”
They resumed play, but something unfriendly had seeped into the game. Deane showed himself to be the better player, but Warburg’s edge in speed and agility was enough to let him begin to dominate. And yes, Warburg’s aggressiveness was lashed by his vexation at the priest’s double game with Mates. Janus indeed.
If fate—or street shoes—required one of them to get hurt, it was going to be Antiquus, and so it happened. Fighting hard for a rebound, Deane went up at an impossibly twisted angle, which was aggravated by a bump from Warburg’s hip. Deane snagged the ball but landed hard and off balance on the side of his right foot, which snapped under, crushing all his weight onto the lower end of the tibia where the long leg bone joined his ankle. “Oh, Jesus!” he gasped, and went down clutching his leg. The pain, nested in adrenaline, prompted him to move, and he bounced up off the pavement. Before Warburg could stoop to him, Deane had drawn himself up onto his good knee—the posture of prayer. He left the injured leg loose and to the side, dropping his head into his right hand. “Jesus,” he said again.
“Oh, man, I’m sorry,” Warburg said. “Are you all right?”
“Give me a minute.”
“Your ankle?”
“My shin, my lower shin. Jeesuss!”
“I am so sorry, Father.”
Deane let the younger man hoist him up, draw his arm across his shoulders, and take most of his weight. Their sweaty upper bodies fit together. Each had an athlete’s unselfconsciousness. “Can you hop?” was Warburg’s only question, and Deane answered with several one-legged leaps, across the basketball court to where their clothing was folded. Warburg helped Deane into his shirt and put on his own, making a bundle of their two jackets, the rabat and collar, and his necktie. With Warburg taking Deane’s weight again, they slowly made their way to the circular driveway in front. There was no sign of the priest’s car, nor of any other vehicle they might commandeer. They zeroed in on a stone bench, and Warburg eased Deane down. Acute pain was showing in his face. Blood had drained away, leaving him pale.
Once seated, Deane reached for the rabat. “I’d better get this damn thing on if I’m going into a Roman emergency room.”
Warburg helped him fasten his cufflinks and put his arms into the garment’s slings. “Like a shoulder holster,” Warburg offered, thinking of the firearms instruction he’d received in the weeks before leaving Washington. He’d protested at first: I’m not that kind of Treasury man. But he was headed for the war zone. He’d been issued a pistol with shoulder holster, which, ever since, he kept under his bed. At that, he thought of the Red Cross woman, her frigid declaration: And I killed him.
After Deane was dressed, Warburg tucked in his own clammy shirt and put on his tie and coat.
Deane pulled his wristwatch out of his coat pocket and, fastening the strap, said, “Oh, brother. I’m supposed to hear confessions at St. Peter’s.”
“You can forget that.”
“No. I have to get there.”
“Why? With all the priests in Rome?” Warburg eyed Deane carefully, knowing he’d used the confessional as a rendezvous.
“English-speaking priests—at a premium,” Deane said, “because of GIs streaming in.”
Warburg felt that they were back on the basketball court, with Deane faking him. Warburg’s counterfake consisted in letting it go. He knelt before Deane to check his leg. He untied the priest’s shoe. “Your foot is swelling, and above your ankle the skin is already purple. You may have bleeding in there. No protrusion, though. That’s good. But I think you’re better off without this.” He slipped the shoe off.
The long black car appeared then, swiftly rounding the corner from behind a string of tall poplar trees. The tires squealed when it stopped. The driver hopped out, saluting. He quickly got the picture and joined Warburg in helping Deane up, across to the car, and into the back seat. “Buon Pastore,” the driver said. Behind the wheel, he popped the gear and headed off, all at once a man of authority.
“Good Shepherd Hospital,” Deane announced. “The good sisters. Good God. Oh, Jesus, give
me a smoke, will you.”
Cupping his hands against the in-draft from the open windows, Warburg lit cigarettes for both of them, then handed one over. Only then did Deane notice, between them on the seat, the folded L’Osservatore Romano—an early copy of the next day’s edition.
“I sent the driver to fetch this,” he said, picking the paper up. Clipped to it was a brown envelope about six inches square. Deane put the envelope aside, unfolded the newspaper, and scanned it. “Front page,” he said. “As promised. Patience pays off. Acta Diurna.” He held it for Warburg, who saw, near the bottom, the one word “Fossoli” leap out of the small print.
“What’s it say exactly?”
Deane held the newspaper at arm’s length, to sharpen his focus. Translating was a welcome diversion, and he slipped into his preacher’s voice: “‘For the Church prays that God, the Father of mercies, hears the prayers of His children in the village of Fossoli, in the commune of Carpi, in the province of Modena. If Job’s sons were purified by their father’s sacrifice’”—Deane paused to look at Warburg, who showed him nothing, and Deane resumed reading—“‘why should the Church not believe that this prayer to the Father of Lights, from whom comes every good endowment, will not also be heard? For she prays in union with Christ her head, who takes up this plea and joins it to His own redemptive sacrifice.’” Deane lowered the paper.
“Job’s sons,” Warburg said.
“Euphemism for Jews. Not that Job was Jewish, strictly speaking. Not that he existed, for that matter.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“The point is, the Catholic air commander will be pleased. Here it is, what he needed, in the Pope’s own newspaper. The two key points: Jews, Fossoli. I know the text sounds—what?—liturgical, but that’s the house style.”
Deane handed the paper to Warburg, who fixed his eyes on the lower corner of the front page. Deane turned his attention to the brown envelope, which was closed with a red wax seal and ribbon, stamped with an unfamiliar crest. He leaned forward toward the driver. “Che cosa è questo?”
“Dall’editore.”
Deane tore at the envelope, cracking the seal, so that soft bits of the blood-red wax fell on his suit. He removed a piece of paper that held a few lines of tidy script. He read. “Jesus,” Deane muttered, then crushed the paper and let his head fall back.
“What?”
“It’s bad. Very bad.”
“What?”
“The editor says they have reports coming in, a terrible fire at Carpi . . . many deaths . . . The local priest was at the camp. The editor says that Cardinal Maglione is demanding to know why tomorrow’s paper mentions Fossoli. Maglione has told the editor to kill the edition.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I’m afraid it’s obvious. Your friends took a chance. The chance was, if the Krauts couldn’t move those people, they would kill them. That seems to be what happened.”
“Good God.”
Deane winced. Mostly he was angry at himself—what a fool he’d been to accept this scheme. But he fixed his anger on Warburg, the first fool. “Surely you saw that. It was the likelihood. The Germans set fire to the camp. Who knows what else they did. Surely you aren’t surprised.”
“I am surprised. I am constantly surprised.”
“Surprise like yours is a luxury. You’re on the wrong side of the ocean for surprise. And for now, those friends of yours, the woman included, are in German territory. Dealing with God knows what. This is what happens in amateur hour. And I got sucked into it. You and I are why those people are dead, don’t you see that? We started the fire—with this Latin tabloid as kindling.”
“If you’d put Fossoli in the Pope’s paper this morning, like you said you would, maybe the Germans wouldn’t have dared—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You have a Jew’s fantasy about the papacy’s influence. The Germans could care less about papal proclamations.”
“What proclamation? You’re saying, even though it’s after the fact and useless, the Vatican is taking the prayer for Fossoli back? Who is? Who’s doing that?”
“Cardinal Maglione. The secretary of state.”
“Can they do that?”
Deane snorted. “It’s Maglione’s newspaper. Of course they can do that. Simple as printing a new front page. Easy. In the presses right now.”
“But why?”
“Fossoli is on fire! Fossoli is a battle scene!” Deane lifted the letter. “An ‘instance of active belligerence’! You can’t have the Vatican anticipating German offensives.”
Warburg started to speak, then stopped. Deane sensed how thrown he was, with guilt, remorse—or was it panic? But then Warburg pushed the feelings back. When he spoke now, it was more quietly, with a hint of supplication.
“But if Fossoli is on the front page of the Pope’s paper tomorrow, people will take notice. Now more than ever, Father. If those people are dead, the least the Pope can do is offer that prayer. Draw attention. Killing this edition of the newspaper is like killing those poor people again.”
But Deane wasn’t buying it. “No,” he said. “Let it go. Bombing that bridge was a half-baked connivance to begin with. I can’t believe I let you rope me into it.” Deane’s leg was really hurting. How was he going to get back to St. Peter’s in time? And sure as hell, tacked to his door would be a citazione from Tardini, summoning him to explain how he had dragged Fossoli into St. Peter’s Square. Jesus! He flicked his cigarette out the car window.
Warburg was silent. The car screeched along, carried by momentum gained on the lower slopes of the Janiculum. Visible ahead was the bridge across the Tiber. The driver was blasting his horn, swerving around other vehicles, making horses rear. Deane gripped his left knee with both hands, bracing the leg. He was unable to deflect any longer the real truth of what had just happened. This Jew had not roped him into anything. He had gone along with the cockeyed scheme for the sake of his own vainglorious ambition, thinking he himself could rescue the Church’s tattered reputation. Yes, helping some desperate Jews, but along the way gaining praise for himself when the camp inmates were rescued, pleasing Spellman and greasing the upward promotion chute for both of them. He felt ashamed. Using those people. He felt disgusted with himself. He deserved this goddamned pain.
Finally Warburg said, “What did you call them? Sons of Job? Why not just say ‘Jews,’ Father? What’s so hard about the word ‘Jews’? And if that pathetic prayer is a violation of Vatican neutrality, your Church has already been taken captive.”
“The prayer wasn’t pathetic. It was heartfelt. I wrote it. And I meant it.” At least that.
“But without the word ‘Jews.’”
“Why does that matter?”
After a long silence Warburg said, “I can’t explain it to you, Father.”
“Just as well,” Deane said. “I can’t deal with this now. My leg is killing me.”
“I’m sorry, but I have another question for you.” Warburg paused to give Deane a chance to look at him, but he didn’t. “How did you know I went to Yale?”
Now Deane met Warburg’s eyes: “What?”
“Eli. Yale. I never mentioned that to you. How do you know?”
“You thought I’d slurred you or something.”
“Never mind that. How do you know? You have Vatican intelligence on me?”
Before Deane could answer, the car screeched to a halt and the driver called, “Arrivati!” The papal flags did their trick. Attendants and nurses swarmed the car, and in short order Deane was on a wheeled stretcher being pushed away. He called back to Warburg, “Find out what happened in Fossoli. Have the driver take you.” And to the driver, “Accompagnalo! Accompagnalo!”
Warburg instructed the driver to take him to the Jewish enclave on the banks of the Tiber, to the building to which Giacomo Lionni first summoned them. Warburg was better informed now than he had been three days before. Jews had lived on those blocks by the river since before Christ was born. But since the R
eformation, which sparked a brutalizing insecurity in the Catholic Church, the district had been a kind of open-air prison, the ghetto. Walls were built, and the gates were closed at dusk. For more than three hundred years, until only eighty years ago, Roman Jews were the Pope’s prisoners—here.
The building in which Warburg, Lionni, Mates, and Marguerite d’Erasmo had met was adjacent to the synagogue, a kind of library and community center, and it was there that Warburg left Deane’s car. The driver was clearly anxious to get back to the hospital. Warburg watched the limousine gun away behind its fluttering yellow flags.
The sun was still high in the sky, but the heat had eased off, and here the riverside boulevard was in the shadow of rangy, high-canopied pine trees. Warburg looked up and picked out the second-floor window of the room in which Lionni had gathered them. The blinds were drawn. The door to the building was locked, but it was double-sided and poorly latched. Warburg banged it loudly, and the frame shook. He had no real reason to expect that Lionni was back in Rome already, or that he would have returned here. He stepped back and saw that the windows on the third floor were roughly nailed over with boards.
Warburg crossed the nearby side street and entered the small piazza that fronted the looming synagogue. Built after emancipation as a kind of declaration, the synagogue was one of the largest buildings in Rome. Its Moorish, squared-off dome rose as a majestic counterpoint to the cupola of St. Peter’s, across the river. As he approached the entrance, he sensed a chill on his neck, the same brief discomfort he’d felt years before, walking up to Beth Israel in Burlington, hoping to hand his father’s tallit to the rabbi. He blanked that memory. Here, a high, spiked fence surrounded the synagogue. The iron gate was slightly ajar, and Warburg saw that its square lock was broken, the metal plate jimmied back. When he tugged the gate it swung open but unevenly on the hinges. A few steps took him to the oversized door, made of oak into which was carved a triptych of filigreed arches above Hebrew letters he did not understand.
The door lock, too, was broken. He went inside. What he beheld took his breath away—not the grandeur of the soaring space, though once it had been grand, but the wreckage of it. Enough light filtered in through the high, arched yellow-paned windows for him to see that benches were upended, haphazardly piled front and back. Wooden slats protruded from the nearest pile, jagged rods, broken chairs, charred cardboard boxes—the remnants of an interrupted fire, a squatter’s fire perhaps. Fires at Fossoli. He thought of Marguerite d’Erasmo. Where was she?
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